Those of you who’ve done this craft are aware how it usually works. First, you draw on in wax all the places you want to be white, and dip the egg in yellow. Then you draw on all the bits you want to have yellow, and dip in orange. And so forth, working from light colors to dark. As a result, the “structural” lines of pysanky designs, the ones that everything else is worked around, tend to be in white because that’s the first set of lines drawn.

On the one above (which I adore, and if anyone wants to get me a present…), almost all the important lines are in black. It is not impossible that whoever did it just filled in around the areas that would end up being black, I suppose, though it would take huge amounts of control. I find it more likely that the egg was dyed black, the lines were drawn, and then they bleached or washed the uncovered black back off again before doing a more traditional progression of colors. It gives a very nifty stained-glass sort of look to the end product.

I’ve been thinking I needed to do some more eggs for the Etsy shop; maybe I’ll try dyeing and bleaching on one.